The companies
involved in these agreements are located and
do business across the globe, from some of the leading academic institutions in
the United States to the
green hills of Northern Ireland. The agreements carry
price tags from several hundred thousand dollars to a few billion—yes,
billion—dollars. The deals
also involve many facets of oncology research, from
preclinical drug discovery to the technology used to conduct cancer-related
experiments. Despite
their diversity, these pacts have one thing in common—they
all seek the holy grail of cancer research: better diagnostics, more effective
treatments
and perhaps most of all, a cure.

It's no surprise that cancer research is perhaps the fastest
growing
disease area of exploration. According to a recent report by market
research firm MarketsandMarkets, 2008 saw almost 12 million patients diagnosed
with cancer. Despite increasing technological
advancements and research, death
due to cancer claimed about 8 million people in 2008.

It's therefore
no coincidence that beginning with this
issue, ddn will examine trends in the
oncology research market in a multi-part series that will
stretch into the end
of this year. This month, we take a close a look at companies that are
integrating various approaches to identifying potential
cancer treatments, from
metabolomics to small-molecule drug discovery to biomarker development, and
beyond. We also report on some of the latest
genetic technologies and molecular
approaches to studying cancer.

In the coming months, we'll examine
the explosion of the
pharmacogenetics market; where funding for cancer research comes from and where
it goes; which types of cancer are the focus of
most research efforts;
collaborative efforts involving industry and academia; and much more.

When
our series is completed later this year, we hope we'll
have provided you with a time capsule of the oncology research market, one that
shows where we
've been, where we are and where we're headed. If you are
conducting research in this growing segment, making groundbreaking progress in
the
treatment or diagnosis of cancer or developing the tools to make these
breakthroughs happen, we would like to hear from you. Please e-mail David
Hutton, our senior editor, at hutton@drugdiscoverynews.com, to lend your voice
to the series. Please help us tell your story.

Cheers & Jeers

Jeers … to LeBron
"Taking My Talents to South Beach" James, basketball phenom and former
Cleveland Cavalier, who officially
announced July 8 that he will comprise
one-third of some sort of "NBA dream team" (in his mind, anyway) on the Miami
Heat. I received a lot of fan
mail from readers after my June column, "We are
all witnesses to failure and success," which envisioned a world where we focus
our time, energy and talent on things
that evoke necessary change, not on
trivial matters like the mass hysteria surrounding James' decision on where to
wear sneakers to work and play a
game for a living. While I'm sure these
statements seem bitter and vitriolic, I don't mourn the loss of James in
Cleveland, despite his many
community contributions, because as I stated in my
previous editorial, it's "hardly the stuff of which a stable economy, respected
academic community
and competitive workforce is made." Instead, I jeer James
for the inane PR gaffe that was "The Decision," his hour-long, narcissistic
spot on ESPN,
where, without so much as a "thanks for the support, Cleveland,"
he let his intentions be known. Everyone from sports journalists to current NBA
officials and some of the sport's most respected players have questioned the
state of a league in which such behavior is condoned. "But things are
different
now," say people like Michael Jordan. The only difference I see is that there
are some very short-sighted, out-of-touch public relations
professionals who
consistently roll the dice on public perception, too blinded by dollar signs
and short news cycles to understand the impact that
class and grace can have on
a person's career or even an entire industry. Shame on them.

Cheers … to the PR
professionals in this industry who protect their clients' good name and make
them accessible to people like us
at ddn. You know who you are.